Our
language has changed dramatically since the end of the sixties.
In everyday life we are not aware of this fact. What a workoholic
is, nobody knew in 1967 or even in 1971; the newest term of
those days was environmental protection. Joseph Siffert
was a workoholic. May other Grand Prix drivers be involved in
aviation, trying to improve their golf or were used to cultivate
the dolce far niente in their spare time, Jo Siffert was of very
different nature: "My favourite hobby is working." And
that very often 16 hours and more a day. At the beginning of his
career he had no other choice, later the massive engagement in
working became a nice habit instead of necessity to survive. At
that time, he had brought worldwide known companies like Heuer
and Marlboro into Formula One and for Porsche he
had prepared the gigantic project 917/10 for the CanAm series,
that brought total triumph to the perfectionist team of Roger
Penske with his drivers George Follmer (who later drove a Shadow
Ford relatively successful in some European Formula One Grand
Prix) and Mark Donohue in the years of 1972 and 1973. But at that
time, Jo Siffert already had lost his life.

We
sometimes have got the problem to imagine some much too young
died men as older gentlemen. That is the same story with James
Dean as well as Jochen Rindt. And also Gilles Villeneuve is of
this quality, I think. Jo Siffert is the same case. He would have
celebrated his 65th birthday on July 7th, 2001, and it had been
only a quarter of a year after becoming 35, when he had to go
forever. Without a minimum of a chance to survive.

From
the early days of Grand Prix Racing, at the beginning of the 20th
century, fire had been the great classical risk of the racing
automobilist. Thank God, it does not exist any longer. "Fire
takes away any reason, any common sense, " says American
Mario Andretti, one of Siffert´s rivals, being his team mate at
March in 1970, too, who retired from international single seater
racing some years ago at the age of over 50 years. But his dream
of a victory in the 24 Hours Endurance Race at French Le Mans is
still alive. Pedro Diniz´burning adventure at the 1996
Argentinian Grand Prix, caused by a damaged filler, 2½ decades
before, would heave meant the secure death sentence. The
Brazilian however had simply burnt his fingers, in the real sense
of these words. No doubt, Siffert´s inferno was not of greater
effect.

The
24th October, 1971 was a beautiful day in autumn, when the Grand
Prix elite met each other nearly completely for the last time
that year; the grid saw also some Formula 5000 cars taking part.
Brands Hatch in the English county of Kent, not far away of the
famous Dartford Tunnel, is considered as the most beautiful
circuit in the history of Grand Prix Racing by many people, maybe
with the exception of Spa Francorchamps in Belgium. Jackie
Stewart, in his first full season in the Tyrrell Ford, had won
his second drivers´world title (Siffert had become 4th in the
championship scoring the same amount of points as Jacky Ickx in
the Ferrari), and the race celebrated to his honour (without the
status of a worldchampionship round) was named Worldchampionship
Victory Race. Nearly all great works teams brought their
cars onto the grid and at Brabham a young Argentinian, who was
called The Indian, gave his debut: Carlos Reuteman,
after the end of his career becoming a politician and being
elected governor of his home federal state of Santa Fé.

Siffert
was on pole position, beside him Peter Gethin in a B.R.M. P160,
too. Surely, on the sporting side nothing was of any value,
everything was a question of honour at best and of prestige
maybe, too. But for B.R.M. the sponsorship for the following year
had not been clearly defined. Yardley, the British
manufacturer of cosmetics with the young and cool image, owned
the British American Tobacco group, thought of signing a
contract with the Brabham team with Graham Hill, Carlos Reutemann
and Wilson Fittipaldi (Emerson´s older brother) for 1972. The
extremely popular Briton and both the young, good looking Latin
Americans would have been much better for their advertising
campaigns as the quiet, ever perfectly organized Swiss in the
very, very conservative B.R.M. team. This enterprise once had
been founded as the British answer to Mercedes-Benz as been
documented by the four-edged star as their firm´s symbol,
without any doubts. The performance of the Stuttgart based
manufacturer never could be egalized, too often they ran into
traps produced by theirown, and that in spite of respecting the
personal engagement of men like Raymond Mays and Louis Stanley.

Yardley´s
intensive flirtation with Brabham produced a lot of sorrows about
the security of his job in Siffert, and with Geathin and the New
Zealander Howden Ganley B.R.M. had got 2 English speaking drivers
in the team possibly being much better for the sponsor´s
interest. That afternoon Siffert had a bad start, he was only 9th
after the first lap, when Gethin was leading. In lap no. 2 the
man from Fribourg collided with the March Ford of Ronnie
Peterson, obviously without getting any damage of his car, but
the Swede had to come into the pits for a tyre change. Was that
the first alarm signal? It seemed to be, that Siffert had also
gear change problems, possibly the reason for the bad start. And
why did he do the 14th lap a full second slower than the ones
before, when already being on position no. 4 after a hard battle
from the middle of the field? There had been no direct opponent
to cost him time fighting with, neither ahead nor behind him! Was
it a puncture, a broken suspension, a damaged gearbox, or at
Lauda at the Nuerburgring in 1976, a chain reaction of negative
aspects being responsible, to bring him to catastrophy? "Let
fate decide," say some team principals, if they are in doubt
of some questions knowing not to answer. In lap 15 fate decided
finally, cruel and forever, but the reason for the accident is
still unknown in spite of more than a quarter of a century
passed.

The Hawthorn Bend lies outside in the forest, far away
from the
main grandstands at start and finish. It has got it´s name by
Britain´s first world champion (1958 in a Ferrari), who had
retired from active competition after having won the title, but
had been killed shortly afterwards by a crash during an
irresponsible private race with Rob Walker on a public road. But
Hawthorn´s time had been over anyway, he suffered under kidney
cancer and saw the end coming nearer and nearer. Before the
braking zone of the Hawthorn Bend there is the feared valley of
Pilgrim´s Drop, causing a lot of problems for many cars before.
The high forces, when bouncing down, made the chassis touch the
ground, suspensions break or at least split the car into 2
pieces. About half a year after Siffert´s traged history
repeated itself at the same place, when Henri Pescarolo in the
Politoys Ford FW01, Frank Williams´first car of his own, crashed
during the 1972 British Grand Prix. But this time the fire
extinguish and rescue system was well-organized and the Frenchman
left the wreckage nearly unhurt.

1971
was a remarkable year in Grand Prix Racing under a lot of
aspects. That Jackie Stewart had been the favourite driver for
winning the title in the first complete season appearance of the
Tyrrell Ford, became obvious at last after the Grand Prix of
Monaco; then he had won 6 out of 11 Grand Prix that year. But
also other had their moments of glory. Mario Andretti won the
first Grand Prix of his career at South African Kyalami. As well
as Peter Gethin in Monza and Francois Cevert in Watkins Glen, but
those victories remained the sole ones of their careers. By the
way Gethin produced two sensational records: The narrowest finish
(one hundredth of a second) and the highest average speed (nearly
243 km/h) of all times - some weeks, before he had been fired by
McLaren without notice, because the Colnbook team considered his
performances not good enough! The Grand Premio was the last
slipstream battle in the history of Grand Prix Racing; then in
Monza chicanes were built, too. By Gethin so narrowly beaten was
Ronnie Peterson, whose excellent positions during the whole
season made him vice champion and crown prince of Formula One.
Zandvoort in the Dutch dunes made us witness the gigantic duel
between the best wet weather drivers of this period, Jacky Ickx
in the Ferrari beat Pedro Rodriguez in the B.R.M.; Firestone
tyres and V12 engines dominated all other competitors using Ford
Cosworth DFVs and Goodyear rubber in most cases. At the Austrian
Grand Prix on Zeltweg´s Oesterreichring a shy, small young man
gave his debut in a March Ford 711 (de Adamich´s chassis with
the spare engine of Mike Beuttler): It was Niki Lauda.

The
Zeppelin field of Nuremberg in Bavaria has got a depressing
tradition. It is the ground, where the Nazis had stage-managed
their Reichsparteitag, the National Socialist party
covention since 1927. On the platform above the giant stone made
grandstands Hitler once had done his demonic speeches. Down
between the Dutzendteich, an only 50 centimetres deep
little lake and the Grundig television and radio plant,
there is the Noris Ring, a typical street circuit with
right-angeled corners, fast straights and a treacherous hairpin
at the end of the start and finish straight. The braking zone of
the opposite straight for the following right-left combination in
front of the stone grandstand lies on a little bridge, behind the
crash barrier only protected by a little wall as high as a man´s
knee. Long before the Noris Ring became the Mecca of touring car
racing, the prototypes and sportscars were driven here. On the
front of the bridge wall a small plaque made out of cast iron
existed for many years, not larger than a post card and hidden
behind the branches of a big willow tree standing beside.
Remembrance of Pedro Rodriguez, who died there in spring 1971 at
a round of the Interseries championship, the European
CanAm, - in a Ferrari 512M and caused by a German Porsche
privateer being lapped twotimes. Louis Stanley of B.R.M. had lost
both his top drivers in 1971. Yardley left the Bourne based team
at the end of the year and went, in spite of Brabham, to McLaren
(meanwhile joined by Peter Revson coming out of the family of
US-American cosmetic group Revlon !), Marlboro became
new title sponsor, but without Siffert, without Rodriguez, B.R.M.
succeeded in only one Grand Prix the following season. Beltoise
won in Monaco and it was B.R.M.´s last Grand Prix victory.

Siffert
and Rodriguez also drove in the same team in the sportscar
worldchampionship, for John Wyer and the Gulf sponsored
Porsche 917s and 908/03s. Originally Siffert shared the cockpit
with Brian Redman, Rodriguez first with Leo Kinnunen from
Finland, later with Jackie Oliver. Siffert/Redman and Porsche
were that at the endurance races, what Jackie Stewart and Tyrrell
meant for Formula One: The team to beat. But at the end of 1970,
maybe under the impression of the fatal accidents of Courage,
McLaren and Rindt, the Englishman made a surprising decision - he
himself had had a serious crash at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1968
driving a Cooper Maserati, when in the valley of Eau Rouge a
wishbone had collapsed. He announced his retirement, emigrated to
South Africa and only came back for one single race in 1971, the
Targa Florio in Sicily. In the other events Siffert took part
together with Derek Bell. Redman by the way revised his decision
very quickly and in the seventies he drove single Grand Prix for
McLaren and Shadow. Later he competed in American IMSA sportscar
racing far into the eighties.

If
there are two top drivers engaged in the same team, rivalry is
always a topic of high quality. That can lead to fatal hatred
like it did at Didier Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve in the
Scuderia Ferrari at the beginning of the eighties, or to
collisions and rude verbal attacks that influenced the
relationship between Senna and Prost not only at McLaren for a
long while. This situation is also not free of a certain risk
Between Siffert and Rodriguez respect had been the determining
factor. Only twice they collided, when being in direct battle, at
the 1963 Mexican Grand Prix and the 6 Hours Endurance Race of
Watkins Glen in 1970, both times with relative harmless
consequences. In the 1000 Kilometres Race at the Nuerburgring in
1971 they even shared a common car, a Gulf Porsche 908/03.
Siffert/Rodriguez finished second.

Already
from their background Siffert and Rodriguez had more dividing
than in common. The Mexican, born in 1940, had his origins in a
wealthy family. Together with his two years younger brother
Ricardo, who was killed in 1962 during the practice for the Grand
Prix of Mexico in the infamous Peralta Curve, he competed in
sports car races at the age of only 16. Like Siffert he won 2
Grand Prix in his career. He succeeded in Kyalami 1967 with a
Cooper Maserati and in Spa 1970 in a B.R.M. - it was the last
race on the ultra-fast, 14 kilometre long old road circuit in the
Ardennes. Siffert however learned the job of a body-maker. To
finance his first motor-cycle races, he dealt with scrap metal
and also with used cars. His race with the 350 cc Norton on the Schleizer
Dreieck, the well-known triangle track and Germany´s oldest
cicuit with the countryside and atmosphere as fascinating as in
Spa, is remembered by the inscription on the memorial at the rim
of the original track leading through the town - before the new
chicane was built. When he crashed at the Noris Ring 1957 with
his bike, he was so much out of money for the following season,
that he was forced to accept an offer for a co-driver´s job in
side car racing to stay in the motorsport business anyhow. The
money for his first Formula Junior cars he earned by his
second-hand car market. Then he joined the team of a wealthy
Swiss industrialist for 1962 and 1963, the famous Scuderia
Filipinetti and drove their private Lotus B.R.M. in the
Formula One events. There were the first succès d´estimes.
But
personal disagreements between him and the Filipinetti group
management lead to the seperation in 1964. Siffert bought a
Brabham B.R.M and became an entrant of his own rights! They spent
the nights in the cheapest hotels, very often in a farm house and
when there was not any money at all finally, they slept in a
sleeping bag with the sky and the stars over them. Instead of
having regular meals Siffert and his small team tried to deaden
the hunger by smoking some cigarettes. Unbelievable but true,
during these hard times Siffert was able to beat the great Jim
Clark twice, surely in non-championship events, but very value
successes from the psychological point of view: In Syracuse and
in Enna, both on the Italian island of Sicily. Some time later
two men gave Siffert´s career the impulses so very much needed
to establish the hard working, but poor privateer into the
world´s elite. Huschke von Hanstein signed him up as a Porsche
works driver. Rob Walker took him under his roof for his
successful private Grand Prix team, first with the Brabham
B.R.M., then, for the new 3 litre formula with a Cooper Maserati
like being driven by Surtees, Rodriguez, Guy Ligier and above all
by Jochen Rindt. For 1968 Walker ordered a Lotus Ford 49 with the
Ford Cosworth V8 unit, the same car, only in Walker´s dark-blue
Scotish colours, as it was used by the works team with Hill and
Clark, and after his tragic death in a Hockenheim Formula 2 race,
with Jackie Oliver.

Both
his Grand Prix victories were marked by pure drama, and the gap
between him and each the second was less than 5 seconds. In 1968
at the British Grand Prix in Brands Hatch, it was Chris Amon in
the Ferrari, who was beaten by Siffert in the Walker Lotus Ford
by only 4.4 seconds, being the only competitor not to be lapped
by the Swiss. Chris, the man, who never was able to win a sole
Grand Prix, extremely weak in direct combat (for this reason the
choleric Ferrari chief designer Mauro Forghieri went really wild
publicly some day), but for many experts on the same level as
Stewart, Ickx or Rindt, lives as a farmer in his homecountry of
New Zealand for many years. To Europe he comes only rarely.

Siffert´s
victory at the Grand Prix of Austria was hanging by a threat even
more. From the lead of nearly half a minute at the beginning, at
the finish line only remained a difference of 4.1 seconds to
Emerson Fittipaldi´s Lotus Ford 72, because the left rear tyre
lost it´s air pressure, the extremely dangerous slow puncture,
in all possibility cost the life of Jim Clark. Fittipaldi became
world champion in 1972 and 1974, produced and drove his own
Brazilian cars (Copersucar-Fittipaldi) for some years, but went
bankrupt. After a longer break, when he had been divorced from
his first wife Maria Helena, he came back to single seater
racing, won twotimes the 500 Miles of Indianapolis and an Indy
championship, too.

Together
with Jo Siffert a second Swiss driver came up to Formula One very
quickly. Clay Regazzoni had won the 1970 European Formula 2
Championship before, driving an Italian Tecno Ford but in the
slipstream battle of Rouen in France 1970, he was beaten by
Sifferts (that´s monocoque had been constructed by aircraft
manufacturer Dornier) by a tenth of a second. A win, so
bitterly needed for Siffert, because with the March Ford 701
Grand Prix car he was not able to score a single point that year.
Regazzoni however had won the Grand Prix of Italy driving for
Ferrari and came home third in the worldchampionship in his first
ever season. In Long Beach 1980 he had that accident caused by a
broken brake pedal, that made him confined to the wheel chair
forever, but not preventing him from taking part in the famous
Paris-Dakar rally in Africa.

The
heroes of a time gone by. Jo Siffert was one of them, polyglot,
universal as an entrepreneur running a Porsche shop and a racing
team (Jo Siffert Automobiles Racing with Jarier,
Larrousse and Mazet) as well as his diverse marketing businesses.
For a personal manager there was no need. "He was a
chivalrous driver," said Jackie Stewart. Chivalry, courage,
discipline but also fairness are values of an epoque being over,
for many people of today absolutely without any meaning. But in
the age of high tech they are more important than ever before.
Historians are always maintaining, we are able to learn from the
past for the present and the future. I think, we at least should
make a trial doing so. We owe that to these men. Let us begin
now.